Aspect, Aktionsart, and Abduction: Future Tense in the New Testament 151 seek to explicate the aspect of the Future using non-traditional categories; both of them deviate from the aforementioned Aktionsart-driven approaches and define aspect on different criteria than used elsewhere; and both propose a similar semantic feature of the Future. McKay regards the Future as expressing a unique fourth aspect. He contends that the Future is partly anomalous, even defective, in the sense that it is used mainly to grammaticalize the semantic feature of intention but also to express simple futurity119. He stresses that the relationship between the aspectual and temporal expression is subtle. To handle the exceptions, he argues that certain statements of futurity that do not appear to express intentionality are a consequence of the intentional idea120. Being alone in proposing four aspects, he acknowledges the difficulties but defends the future aspect by saying that it is “an explanation which recognizes that the range of future forms approximates most closely to those of the three obvious aspects [imperfective, aorist and perfect]”121. This is where Porter’s approach is different from McKay’s. Porter rejects both the notions that the Future constitutes a verbal aspect in its own right and that the tense form by itself grammaticalizes temporal reference. Although he acknowledges McKay’s contribution as commendable, Porter criticizes his attempt as it failed to cover the idea of internal constituency or paradigmatic choice, calling his definition a “hotchpotch of intentional and external temporal features, and hence fails to be fully convincing”122. In addition, by attributing both the function of temporal and modal reference to the future aspect, McKay’s definition is close to committing a category mistake, i.e. speaking of a tense-form in terms of both temporal relation and attitude123. Porter’s model is arguably the most systematic, comprehensive and technical work to date. It attracts most discussions and criticisms on methodological issues, while at the same time, being misunderstood and misrepresented by some of his critics. His approach is often criticized as being difficult to read124, and theory-driven125. His treatment of the 119 McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 225; McKay, “Syntax in Exegesis”, 46; McKay, “Perfect and other Aspects”, 290 and McKay, New Syntax, 52. 120 McKay, Greek Grammar, 147. 121 In response to Porter’s view of aspectually vagueness of the Future. McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 225. 122 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 408. 123 Porter, Verbal Aspect, 407. 124 McKay, New Syntax, 35-6. 125 Campbell, Verbal Aspect, 136. See also McKay, “Time and Aspect”, 210, who ex- presses the concern of Porter’s work that “theory can sometimes lose sight of fact”, and considers his own work as “being less confusing to the person who learns Greek mainly to understand the text of the NT”.